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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25633597">everything</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/textbookchoices/pseuds/textbookchoices'>textbookchoices</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Pilgrimage (2017)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>First Time, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Healing, Intercrural Sex, Loyalty, M/M, Magic, Oral Sex, Post-Canon, Road Trips, Secret Relationship, Sex Pollen, Something Made Them Do It</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 10:40:01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,658</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25633597</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/textbookchoices/pseuds/textbookchoices</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>"What?" Diarmuid had run past her implication, her sudden and unlikely appearance there on the beach, and asked, "There's a way to save him? How? Please, help him!"</p><p>She had smiled, a wicked expression on her face to match her dark eyes.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Brother Diarmuid/The Mute</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>51</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Battleship 2020, Battleship 2020 - Red Team</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>everything</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/LearnedFoot/gifts">LearnedFoot</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Diarmuid wakes slowly the next morning. </p><p>He stares up at the sky for a moment, at the way the light from the sun filters through the tree branches to create a beautiful vision of peace.</p><p>His companion lies next to him, still asleep with his face tucked into Diarmuid neck, his hot breath hitting Diarmuid's skin on every exhale, making him shiver and his skin prickle with anticipation--or memory.</p><p>It's the fourth day, now, since the temptation had been enough to damn both his mute friend and Diarmuid himself, since they had first felt the burning heat on their skin, the need tugging at their hearts, making that which lay between their thighs desperately seek the touch of the other's body.</p><p>It was the green flowers, Diarmuid thinks. They had been a gift from a small woman, and Diarmuid had been uncertain at the time about taking them--but the mute, dying there on the sand, had had little other option and the woman had come like an answer to Diarmuid's sobbing, voice-cracked prayers and pleadings.</p><p>"Don't be so grief-stricken, boy," she'd said, old Irish curling her words. "Your lover is not yet dead and there are ways to save him still."</p><p>"What?" Diarmuid had run past her implication, her sudden and unlikely appearance there on the beach, and asked, "There's a way to save him? How? Please, help him!"</p><p>She had smiled, a wicked expression on her face to match her dark eyes. </p><p>"Feed him and yourself these," she'd said, holding up a small brown pouch, "for three days and nights. Eat nothing else. On the third day, after giving him his every desire, you must lay with him beneath the moon and hold on tightly. If you are not holding tightly enough, he will slip away like the sand on this beach with high tide."</p><p>Diarmuid, desperate, had reached for the pouch.</p><p>He knew what she was. Who else would come like this, and offer such a deal but one of the sidhe? But he didn't care. He had to save his friend. There was no other choice.</p><p>Her smile widened, showing sharp, pointed teeth, cracked and yellow. "I will give you these on a condition, child. Will you hear it, or will you agree to anything?"</p><p>"Anything," he said, swallowing. The mute's heart had slowed, his breathing ragged and yet quiet. There was no time. "I'll give you anything, just, please. He's <em>dying!"</em></p><p>She gave him the pouch and he took one of twelve green flowers out. He pressed it gently to his friend's lips, pushing it past his teeth and into his mouth, and begged, God and the mute and whoever else who could help. "Please, chew. You have to chew. Swallow it."</p><p>He looked up when air seemed to fill his friend's chest, and he was wracked with coughs. </p><p>Diarmuid remembered then, that you must always do what a sidhe says--you must follow the rules exactly, or consider the deal unfulfilled. He took one of the flowers and bit into it, swallowing past the bitter taste. </p><p>He fell, coughing, onto the sand, rough grains sticking to his wet skin as he gasped for air. </p><p>He'd felt his friend's large palm touch his face, and then felt darkness overtake him.</p><p>When he woke that first morning, it was to the mute sitting up, the metal torture device lying a ways away, covered in sand and blood, as though it had been thrown in disgust. Diarmuid eyes seek out his friend's, first, soft and brown and swimming with questions, with fear. Then, his eyes cast downward over his naked chest. The wound is there, bleeding sluggishly, but somehow he's alive despite it and the tool that had killed Ciaran has been removed.</p><p>"How?" he starts, reaching up with a hand to touch. </p><p>When his tips of his fingers brush his friend's chest, a feeling like lightning crashes through them both, making them gasp and flinch and grasp at each other. Diarmuid feels a hand on the back of his head, tugging him down as if being guarded from unknown danger. </p><p>The fire burning through him at the touch was as demanding to him as sin was to a past sinner, and he pressed his mouth firmly to the mute's chest, tasting salt and perspiration on his skin, hard and taut muscles beneath his hands and lips.</p><p>Hands tightened in his hair, and Diarmuid desperately unclasped the belt holding his friend's breeches up, dragging them down quickly and just enough for his hard and leaking cock to slip out. Hard, but soft to the touch, and as intoxicating in that moment as Diarmuid had always been warned the pleasures of the flesh could be. </p><p>He licked it, first, tasting and feeling the heat of it on his tongue before he wrapped his mouth around it, hands clutching wildly at the throaty sounds his mute friend couldn't seem to contain. He'd swallowed, drooling around it with an unpracticed imprecision, as he choked because the head hit the back of his throat. </p><p>He came beneath his robes, hips thrusting against the sand like a wild dog might thrust against its mate, large, strong hands buried in his hair. The taste of salty, bitter liquid exploded on his tongue, the hands in his hair tightening as the mute thrust jerkily up with hips, unable to stop.</p><p>Diarmuid had drawn away, wiping at his mouth and chin with the back of his hand as the realization of what the sidhe meant when she'd said <em>every desire</em>. The mute had taken his hands away. He looked sick.</p><p>Diarmuid squeezed his eyes shut and said, "I'm sorry. I had to. I couldn't see you die. I couldn't."</p><p>He should have given his friend space--injured, violated and sinned against; surely the mute man didn't want Diarmuid there. But Diarmuid's stomach rolled and his hands trembled, and he threw himself forward to wrap his arms around the mute's neck. He muttered wetly into his neck, "Please forgive me," and his tense body only loosened in tentative relief when he felt strong arms wrap around him in return.</p><p>It's been three days since then, three days of walking back towards the monastery, though Diarmuid didn't know what he would say when they reached home. How could he explain what had happened? That he had thrown the relic away? That he had seen and perhaps even been the cause of so much death?</p><p>That every day, the burning need would rise in his stomach and his eyes would begin to stray to toward the mute's body. His brown eyes. His mouth. His callused hands, his strong arms. His thick, powerful thighs and the lean, soft but hard stomach that was nearly completely healed. </p><p>Worst was the way Diarmuid found himself glancing between the mute's thighs, catching himself again and again, desperately seeking out what was hidden from his sight as they walked through the woods and rolling hills.</p><p>His hands would reach out without permission, touching. His friend, though mute, never protested in any way but one: holding Diarmuid still and looking into his eyes, searching, eyes wild and desperate to find an answer to whatever question he couldn't ask with words.</p><p>The second night, after eating their fill, Diarmuid clung to him as he thrust up against him, their cocks sliding together, slick from their own arousal. Diarmuid came with a cry so loudly that had anyone been near, they'd have heard him and come looking. </p><p>There was no one near, thankfully, and they curled together beneath a large tree, shivering through the cold night as they took comfort in each other's presence and body heat. </p><p>The third night, last night, the moon had been high and they'd eaten the last of the flowers. Diarmuid had laid on the ground in a bed of soft grass, and he'd sobbed from the pleasure bursting in stomach, leaking from his cock, as the mute thrust between his tightly pressed thighs, every movement of his hips sending a hard, rocking surge of arousal through Diarmuid's body. </p><p>"Please," he begged. "Oh," he'd gasped, his every breath punching out of him, the mute's harsh pants cascading over the back of his neck, hot and wet and thrilling. </p><p>They came, and Diarmuid climbed over him, wrapping his arms around him and covering him with as much of his body as he could. He clung, he pressed so tightly with his fingers that deep, purple marks were left on the mute's skin this morning. Diarmuid can see them on his hips, his back.</p><p>There are long scratching marks on his shoulders and back too. Diarmuid feels the ache in his hips and his thighs and his calves from their efforts. They're a mess, a very picture of sin, and he feels the love he has for the man beneath him bloom even brighter in his heart.</p><p>The mute's hand runs delicately over Diarmuid's naked shoulders. He tugs gently, playfully, on the messy curls atop Diarmuid's head and Diarmuid ducks, smiling until he laughs, short and bright. "I love you," he breathes, and he knows they'll never be able to tell. This is the sidhe's curse, to give him something he wanted so desperately, knowing he'll never be able to truly have it completely.</p><p>He doesn't even know the mute's true name.</p><p>But he loves him, and he'll take whatever the sidhe do to him. He'll give them whatever they come to ask of him.</p><p>God has allowed him this, somehow, and perhaps it is a punishment--perhaps he'll end up in hell for the sin of his heart and his body and the blasphemy of making a deal with the sidhe. </p><p>But, looking into his lover's eyes, wide and brown and crinkled at the corners, all pleasure and surprise, Diarmuid knows that one thing is true:</p><p>This love in his heart, this fleeting happiness, is worth all of it<em>.</em></p>
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